Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Lightly grease 3 baking trays. Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and cream together until light and fluffy.

Separate the egg yolk from the white and set the white aside. Beat in the egg yolk. Sift in the flour and mix well with enough milk to give a fairly soft dough.

Knead the mixture gently on a lightly floured surface and roll out to 5mm thick. Cut into your chosen cookie shapes, place on the prepared baking trays and bake for 8-10 minutes.

To make the royal icing, first sieve the icing sugar into a bowl. Add the egg white and combine gently. Add the water and mix with a spoon until combined. Using an electric mixer, mix on low for up to 15 minutes until you have a nice light texture.

To colour your icing, first mix colours in a ramekin or small bowl, then add small amounts using a cocktail stick to achieve the colour you want – you will need approx. 2 tablespoons of royal icing to 2-3 touches from a cocktail stick. We used the following number of drops from the Wilton Colour Right System:
Blue: 4 x blue
Lilac: 6 x red, 2 x blue
Jade green: 8 x blue, 4 x yellow
Pink: 8 x red, 1 x blue, 6x pink

Pipe the outline on the biscuits using a disposable piping bag fitted with a piping tube.

When the outline has dried, let down your icing by adding a few drops of water until it has the consistency of thick yoghurt. Spoon the let-down icing into a piping bag, snip off the tip to make a very small hole and fill in the middle of your icing design. Use a small decorating brush to help spread it to the edges and remove any air bubbles. Leave to dry completely unless you’re adding sprinkles to the wet icing.

Decorating tips

Mermaid – ice the face, arms and middle first and leave to dry, then ice the rest. Add sprinkles to her tail when the icing is wet. When fully dry, paint on her face using a black edible food pen.